Family wants to move to Colorado so daughter can get marijuana to treat seizures

JANESVILLE, Iowa — 17-month-old Maggie Selmeski is a little girl, with a big problem — she had her first major seizure when she was just six weeks old.

“She was convulsing,” her mother, Rachael Selmeski, said. “All her limbs were convulsing.”

Doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with Maggie, but they have diagnosed her main symptom: infantile spasms. She’s tried four anti-seizure medications, but nothing has worked for her. So now, her parents have come to their last resort.

“We are in the process of moving to Colorado to gain access to medical marijuana,” she said.

Maggie has more than 500 seizures every a day. They’re tough to spot, but devastating to her development. She’s 17 months old, but has the brain and motor development of a three-month-old infant. She can’t even hold her head up.

Her parents felt helpless, but then, they saw a CNN documentary about marijuana, called “Weed.”

In it, they saw kids just like Maggie, their seizures significantly reduced by medical marijuana.